Woojun-Lee is a nature photographer who has exhibited in South Korea. Recent solo exhibitions include Artlogicspace and Yuyejae SJAS in Seoul as well as Projectspace Kosmos and Songdocoffee in Incheon. Collective exhibitions include Gaheung Art Studio in Chungju (which was also a residency) and Chungmuro Gallery as well as Museum Hanmi in Seoul. Wookun-Lee is the co-author of Yeonsu and Yoohee are with Lee Woojun and Choi Hyunjeong, published by Areumdaumbooks.
Shooting in both black and white as well as color photography, Woojun-Lee seems to always follow a monochromatic path no matter what format he works in. His photography contains intimately cropped scenes captured during particular weather conditions, such as during heavy snowfall or fog. There remains a coldness to his work—captured in the thick sfumato and moisture in the air as if rainfall were about to occur. These cropped scenes typically capture close shots of the hydraulic power of water in pools of ponds, oceans, and lakes as well as cliffsides, distant shorelines, and barren-foliage-stripped trees in the dead of winter.
As a result, Woojun-Lee’s photography can be described as deeply poetic in not only what he captures but also his methods. His talent for cropping dynamic compositions reveal surfaces which almost seem like hallucinogenic distortions—as if awakening from a stupor or even a near-death experience. Some of the photographs appear almost like installations, especially his most close, cropped shots—which reveal a texture one would want to experience in a gallery for a film installation. These interactive shots feel more like film stills rather than photography because the frozen mechanics of wind and water feel as if concurrently in motion. Woojun-Lee’s deeply investigative approach feels authentic in searching for the purpose of identity through the barren landscapes and specific weather conditions he selects for capturing. His photographs often feel as if moisture was crystalizing in the air with the delicate linearity and consuming fog captured on shore—and treelines.
Splash 2 depicts a close-up of a body of water, which could be a river or shoreline of the ocean, in violent commotion encircling upon itself with hydraulic vortexes. The subtlety in the textures conveys a surface resembling and evoking a film still through the frozen erratic motion. With diligence and sense of character, the cropped composition gives off an aura of power and substance—as if a mythological god were demonstrating their might.
Woojun-Lee brings forth nature photography into conceptual identity through his clever choices of revealing specific textures which communicate various emotional impulses—such as desolation, nihilism, solitude, sorrow, peace, and melancholiness. His deeply poetic drive and inclinations in capturing sustained nature in posture reveals a deep mind willing to push the boundaries of puristic representations. Through a dynamic lens and a talent for timing and composition, Wookun-lee can be described as a promising, exciting photographer who has a great future ahead as a young, yet developed artist. Woojun-Lee’s photography represents a personal interpretation of how surfaces and linear compositions through selective depictions of foliage, stone, and water convey poetic philosophy on an almost contemporary mythological scale.